Another day, another brewery, and a sneaky one at that. We were just putzing around town when we stumbled on the Midtown Global Market. We heard it had a brewery in it called Eastlake but we heard very little about the beer itself.

We’d seen the iconic artwork on their bottles and on Instagram. The displays of a bear holding an axe or a raccoon sitting near a toolbox. The basic aesthetic makes you think these animals are about to blow s**t up and it’s a good segue into what the beer did to us.

Eastlake is small, only 88 seats in their taproom, and weirdly we didn’t expect much out of the beer. We practically stumbled upon it anyway. But like most good accidents, Eastlake blew up our thought process after we stepped in the taproom and had a sip of their delicious brew.

It was the L'Ogre de Turvueren Belgian Pale that got us first. One of the most surprising beers we’ve had in the Twin Cities. Say you know someone who’s never been to MSP. If there was a single beer you’d want them to try you wouldn’t feel too bad having them sample L’Ogre. It’s right up there with Todd the Axe Man from Surly or the Rubbish Oat Amber Ale from LynLake. It’s that good.

It’s a beer we specifically took one of our friends to try because he liked beer. And he loved L’Ogre so much, his first child may be named after it. Well maybe not, but he got two pints of it.

The atmosphere is great too. We love the hipster service, we like the mounted bear on the wall anchored by neon lettering, we like the mustache oil behind the bar. We like it all here but we really like the beer!

So whip out your Untapped and get to praising the L’Ogre or something else.